s! I
make no claim to be equal to you in intelligence. Mephistopheles declared
to Faust that he desired evil, but did only good. Well, he can say what he
likes, it's quite the opposite with me. I am perhaps the one man in all
creation who loves the truth and genuinely desires good. I was there when
the Word, Who died on the Cross, rose up into heaven bearing on His bosom
the soul of the penitent thief. I heard the glad shrieks of the cherubim
singing and shouting hosannah and the thunderous rapture of the seraphim
which shook heaven and all creation, and I swear to you by all that's
sacred, I longed to join the choir and shout hosannah with them all. The
word had almost escaped me, had almost broken from my lips ... you know
how susceptible and esthetically impressionable I am. But common sense--oh,
a most unhappy trait in my character--kept me in due bounds and I let the
moment pass! For what would have happened, I reflected, what would have
happened after my hosannah? Everything on earth would have been
extinguished at once and no events could have occurred. And so, solely
from a sense of duty and my social position, I was forced to suppress the
good moment and to stick to my nasty task. Somebody takes all the credit
of what's good for Himself, and nothing but nastiness is left for me. But
I don't envy the honor of a life of idle imposture, I am not ambitious.
Why am I, of all creatures in the world, doomed to be cursed by all decent
people and even to be kicked, for if I put on mortal form I am bound to
take such consequences sometimes? I know, of course, there's a secret in
it, but they won't tell me the secret for anything, for then perhaps,
seeing the meaning of it, I might bawl hosannah, and the indispensable
minus would disappear at once, and good sense would reign supreme
throughout the whole world. And that, of course, would mean the end of
everything, even of magazines and newspapers, for who would take them in?
I know that at the end of all things I shall be reconciled. I, too, shall
walk my quadrillion and learn the secret. But till that happens I am
sulking and fulfill my destiny though it's against the grain--that is, to
ruin thousands for the sake of saving one. How many souls have had to be
ruined and how many honorable reputations destroyed for the sake of that
one righteous man, Job, over whom they made such a fool of me in old days!
Yes, till the secret is revealed, there are two sorts of truths for
me